Racing with the Outlaws

Part 1

by Dale Wilson
photo by Classic Motorsport Services
7/7/03

hey are the tracks that most people who live outside the Deep South have rarely heard of: The Headhunters Motorcycle Club Putt-Putt Bush Drag Strip; Birmingham Dragway, born Lassiter Mountain Raceway in the late 1950s; Byhalia Drag Strip; Winston County Raceway; Green Valley Dragway in Gadsden, Alabama, not in Texas; Phenix City Drag Strip (and yes, the "Phenix" is spelled right); Baileyton Good Time Drag Strip; Holiday Beach Raceway, known simply as "the Beach;" and Paradise Drag Strip, the pride of its builder, Otto Timms.

Some have carried drag racing association flags at various times, others never. Most answer to no one but themselves. But these tracks are unique in that most pay good money for a reasonable entry fee, most have drag strip food that is better than passable, and most attract a fair amount of spectators, especially when the Pro Modified and "10.5-tire" boys roll in. Back 10 years or so ago, many hosted alcohol Funny Cars, eight cars at a show, maybe a dozen on the grounds, all running in the low 4's and high 3's.

Most have an ambulance and trained EMTs on site. One or two may not. Tech inspections are rare -- one outlaw promoter has said that if the car has big tires on the back and little ones on the front and a helmet on the nut who drives it, the car has passed. One track I know of, in north-central Alabama, has a sign prominently nailed to a tree near staging. "Race at your own risk," it says in hand-painted letters.

How does that Italian restaurant TV commercial go, "When you're here, you're family"? That's usually the way it is here -- most outlaw track operators are darn glad you've come over to race with them on a given Saturday afternoon, and they'll shake your hand to prove it.

Most close up tight just after college football season begins. "That's when our crowds really drop off," Holiday Beach's Thurman West said. "You can't get anybody to come out and race when football season begins." We guess so -- "the Beach," located in Woodstock, Alabama, is but an hour's drive from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa ("Roll, Tide!"), and two hours north of Auburn ("War Damn Eagle!"). Thurman is no fool.

HOLIDAY BEACH

I have been to every track listed above. Raced at most of them except Byhalia and Winston County, which drops off into nothing past the last turnoff. I've found that each has its own, let us say, ambiance, and a couple are to be preferred to those run and owned by the big "hot rod" associations. One, Holiday Beach Raceway, is my favorite -- I raced there four times in my racing history, and won twice, once in our '86 five-speed Camaro and once in our '37 Chevy street rod. One other time I went two rounds in the '37 and at the other I had a flat tire in my front-engine dragster after the first time run, so I withdrew from competition.